Inner Demons
by ImALazyProcrastinator
Summary: Everyone has their own. From snobby, rich girls who find mysterious books in the forest to actual, literal demons who live in a two-dimensional world that won't allow itself to think outside the box, these inner demons will always be present. No matter what. Twin Demons AU-ish.


To my old readers- I'm sorry it took me forever to get this rewritten chapter out...

To new readers- This is a rewritten version of this story, if you were wondering.

To everyone- Enjoy! But if you don't, or if you find a problem, like a plot hole or a grammatical mistake, or anything in between, please tell me. I swear, I won't get mad and start a mini online war. I'll actually be really happy that you took the time to actually tell me about any mistake I have.

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Inner Demons Prologue

Not the best way to start, is it?

...

"What?" Alcor's one eye narrows with anger. His voice echoes in the dark, damp basement which reeks of the dizzying and disgusting smell of rat pee and stale sewer water. He doesn't even have a nose, but he can feel it like a building collapsing on top of him—it's that strong.

Alcor looks around the basement, but he doesn't let the man who summoned him out of his sight. He's disgusted by what he sees—it looks like it hasn't been cleaned up in decades. There's even some brown crusty stuff covering a huge part of a dark corner of the small basement, and he definitely doesn't ever want to know what that stuff is.

He does, though, and he wants to forget about it, but he can't. Especially not since a tiny, malnourished, bruised and wounded little boy is huddling right in that corner.

A boy whose blood all that brown, crusty stuff is.

"What did you just tell me to do?" His words hold anger in them—lots of it. He hopes that the old man in front of him feels it. After what he just told him to do…

The fifty-year old man drunkenly stumbles around, his words slurred together as he tries to right himself up. "Hurt the kid…" He raises his head to look at Alcor, and squints like the dim light emanating from him is blinding. "I already told you that… Listen to the person who summoned you, you stupid demon!"

"Excuse me?" Alcor's words are polite, but they definitely sound as rude as heck. He won't let anyone tell him to hurt a kid whose innocence was taken away from him.

Especially not the man who took that innocence away.

The old sot stumbles again. He grits his teeth and frowns. "You heard me—"

"Yeah, I did." Alcor glares at the old guy. His voice is hard and cold, like marble. "I just can't believe that you'd do that to your own nephew."

"I can do whatever I want with that kid!"

 _"No, you can't!"_

There's anger in Alcor's voice. Lots of it. Looking at the old man, Alcor realizes that he's scared the guy.

Good. Now he can really get started.

Alcor raises his hand and glares at the old man. Since he hasn't made a deal with the creep yet, he can hurt him without breaking any promises.

Besides, he wouldn't make a deal with a man who wanted to hurt his own nephew.

Alcor closes his eye. Concentrate…

And then he opens his eye and makes a fist with the hand he held out. Here's hoping it works this time.

The old man in front of him seems confused and wary, like he doesn't know what Alcor's going to do, but he doesn't like it either. He starts to back away, but then suddenly his eyes widen, and he starts pawing at his throat. He gasps and chokes for air, but he can't breathe any.

Okay. It's working. That's a good sign, right?

The old man keeps trying to breathe, struggling and gradually falling to his knees. He looks like he's ready to pass out.

Alcor almost is, too. This is kind of straining him, but he's trying not to go all unconscious-y. He's also trying to keep the old man from passing out - at least for now. He wants him to feel more pain.

Especially after what that monster did...

Finally, the old guy turns almost as blue as Alcor with the lack of air. Alcor can't keep this up anymore and drops his mental hold on him.

So the man's eyes roll into the back of his head, and the rest of him falls down to the floor with a thud, unconscious. He's breathing heavily in his rest, the oxygen he needs circulating though his lungs again.

Alcor's kind of almost ready to fall to the floor, too. He doesn't pass out, though. It's a good sign, since doing that usually tires him out easily. He must be getting better at controlling his powers.

And then he feels something strange, like someone's looking at him. Alcor frowns and looks up, finding himself staring into the eyes of the little boy in the corner.

Shoot. He forgot that kid was still in the room.

Uh-oh...

He immediately stops frowning and starts approaching the little kid like he's a little, badly wounded animal.

Technically, he is one.

"Hey, kid…" Alcor says as gently as he can. He doesn't want to scare the poor guy, but he probably already did. He really should have thought more about that part of the plan, because, seriously, who wouldn't be scared seeing their only known relative passed out on the floor?

"It's okay," He continues, still trying to speak gently. The kid is trembling and is crawling as deep as he can into the bloodstained corner. Alcor has to help that kid somehow.

"I won't hurt you."

The kid's still scared, though—he can see it in his glassy, tear-stained eyes full of fear.

Alcor holds his hand out, the palm facing up. "I won't hurt you." He says, still gently and softly, as he looks the kid in the eye to show him that he's telling the truth. He hopes it works.

A moment passes, maybe two, but it looks like the little guy finally believes him now, because he takes Alcor's hand. He stands up shakily with Alcor's help, and now that he's closer, he can see the kid is covered in bloodstains and bruises and wounds.

Alcor sighs softly. Poor kid.

* * *

Pacifica wakes up to bright sunlight streaming through the open curtains. She must have forgotten to close them last night.

Great. Just great.

She yawns, despite the fact that she probably had about eight hours of sleep, and squints because of the sunlight. Every morning is more or less like this, whether the sun is as bright as it is now, or if it's much dimmer. She just really isn't a morning person. It's not like she ever was.

She sits up. The canopy hanging from her bedposts shields her from the rest of the sunlight coming from the huge windows that go almost ceiling to floor. Of course, the canopy's pink. Hot pink, too, which just makes it worse. Sure, it's a nice color sometimes, but… it just isn't a good color to wake up to.

Everything else in her room is pink, too. Well, either that or bright purple. It's super annoying.

Before you ask why she can't just redecorate, here's why.

She can't. Her parents won't allow her to. They say it would be too much of a hassle, and that it would be too much work for her. They also say that it would be better the way it is now, since it looks very lavish and fancy for a twelve year-old's bedroom. Apparently, the fancier it is, the more jealous the people in town will get.

There's only one thing wrong with that—everyone at school and in town already is jealous of her life.

They really shouldn't be.

And then her eyes widen—

School.

Oh, no! Isn't it a school day today? And didn't she wake up later than usual? What if she's late? It'll ruin her reputation! And her perfect record! She really shouldn't have gone to that party last night—but she just can't resist parties….Argh, her parents would kill her if her cleaned-up record was ruined again! And she definitely cannot let her classmates see her late—she's supposed to be perfect!

Isn't she?

Pacifica grabs her hair in both her hands and pulls. It hurts, but only barely. Besides, she has too much hair anyway! She can stand _some_ of the strands being pulled out.

And then she gets up and runs to the bathroom on the other side of her huge room. In all honesty, maybe she shouldn't have complained that her old room was too small. Now she has to run what feels like a mile from one side of it to another. But then again, it's probably just the fact she isn't athletic speaking.

She keeps running, blood pumping through her veins, but then she remembers something. She skids to a stop and kinda trips, sending her falling to the floor. She hits her head on the carpet-covered floor, but she doesn't make a move to stand up.

Why?

Because it's the first day of summer. That's why there's a party.

This is even worse than her possibly being late for school.

Now you're probably wondering why she hates summer so much.

Because, well, to be honest, other kids love summer.

They love the fact that there'ss no more school, no more stress, and no more homework.

They love the summer sun, being able to hang out with friends for hours on end until the break of dawn and maybe even longer, and finally - finally- being able to slack off without being scolded by both their parents and teachers.

It sounds great- amazing, in fact. What is there to not love?

For Pacifica? Every single thing about it.

She hates summer and waits for what feels like forever for fall to come rolling back in.

She loves school.

There, she is feared by every student.

Her name invokes shivers of fear down the spines of everyone who isn't part of her clique.

And even then, her own clique's still afraid of her.

There, all the teachers treat her well because of her family's money and status.

There, she can spend time with her friends without having to worry about the time.

And best of all?

In school, she doesn't have to see her parents.

She doesn't have to endure their torture.

She doesn't have to be scolded every single time she steps a millimeter out of line of their high standards.

Sure, in school, she's treated like she's a bully, or a mean girl.

She's also been to the disciplinarian's office for about 83 times already, which definitely didn't work, since she just bribed them to let her off easy.

And it's completely unfair.

After all, she's just doing what her parents taught her to do, since she had always been told to obey her parents. She always did.

Pacifica shivers, and it definitely isn't because the AC in her room is turned up to full blast. Obeying her parents - that's the easy part. The hard part is that if she doesn't, she would always get punished.

Every. Single. Time.

Pacifica bites her lip and starts propping herself up on her elbows to sit up. She sighs as she pushes herself up and walks over unsteadily and shakily to her four-poster, king-sized bed with a tall canopy and silken sheets, almost like she's in some sort of trance.

She sinks back into the soft memory foam mattress that always used to be able comfort her when she was down with its soft cloud-like properties that usually managed to bring her back up.

But it can't. Not this time, anyway.

She puts her cold, shaking hands together, trying her best to make herself calm. Fear courses through her veins even through all her useless efforts, though, leaving her like a frozen statue carved out of white marble.

Pacifica sighs and lies back down on her bed. She hates every single second of summer, no matter what all the other kids think.

She grabs the phone by the desk and sighs as she checks the date. It really _is_ the first day of summer.

And then she checks her phone again, looking at the time this time, her eyes widening.

It's about seven in the morning. Almost a quarter to eight.

She looks at it again.

It's still seven thirty six.

She really woke up early today, huh?

Pacifica stands up, a teensy bit less panicky. Breakfast won't be ready until nine AM, and her parents usually wake up super late, so she still has two options: go back to bed and sleep, or sneak out and try to calm her senses with nature, something she strangely and surprisingly likes, even though, it's, you know, full of disgusting insects.

Yeah, she's so totally going to pick the second one. No way is she going back to sleep now.

Not like she can, anyway.


End file.
